A Third-Party Promo Gone Awry; OpenAI Has An App For That

Buy The Dip

There’s usually a delicate balance between influencer product giveaways or trial budgets and the cost of those freebies.

But not, perhaps, for dip brand Heluva Good!, which has been mysteriously delivering – no joke – 60-pound tubs of its products to baffled restaurants all over Philadelphia.

Huh?

It looks like Heluva Good! ran a promo prior to the Super Bowl, which involved giving away large quantities of dip to vendors for sampling. And then the brand just kept on doing it.

“We are aware of a third-party promotion that resulted in a shipping error involving Heluva Good! Dip,” the company told The Philadelphia Inquirer.

The brand was ostensibly unaware of its runaway shopper marketing promo, and confusedly told the merchants who reached out (“Uhhh … you sent us 60 pounds of dip?”) to ditch the dip out of an abundance of caution, since the company couldn’t vouch for it.

Ironically, the fiasco has now become an earned media hit, and it probably paid off. Talk about double dipping.

Back 2 Brand

Last week, OpenAI backpedaled on plans for an in-app checkout.

Now, its shopper offerings will be carried on the backs of retailers, which is simpler for OpenAI, but not for retailers.

According to research from AI visibility startup Profound, product listings appear in 9% of AI shopping search responses. That’s partly because LLMs are cautious about even appearing biased but, regardless, the fact is that it’s hard for businesses to show up.

Uber and Instacart already have ChatGPT apps. But many shoppers don’t know how to access them or that they even exist. The Information reports that, as of now, “users need to enable the apps and then summon them in a chat, for instance, by typing ‘@Instacart.’”

OpenAI is considering the best way to proactively suggest apps. Other platforms (namely, Google and Apple) solve this through paid and organic search within an app store.

But OpenAI is a different beast. As Josh Blyskal, Profound’s research and strategy lead, points out, what happens when a user with both the Uber and Lyft apps requests a ride via ChatGPT? “Who determines what app gets called on the phone?” Blyskal asks.

Cleanup In Aisle Slop

AI’s mess needs AI to clean it up.

On Thursday, news analytics company NewsGuard released a tool for detecting AI content farms, which it defines as websites with substantial volumes of content created by AI that isn’t disclosed as such. The tool has a direct integration with The Trade Desk so media buyers can filter those sites using pre-bid segments, Adweek reports.

NewsGuard hopes the tool, developed in collaboration with AI detection startup Pangram, will help advertisers and readers avoid misinformation and made-for-advertising junk.

Many of these sites mimic real news sites, churning out AI-generated stories designed to be shared widely on social media. One AI story sparked a false rumor that Coca-Cola was pulling its Super Bowl sponsorship over Bad Bunny’s halftime show. Other fake stories spread nonsense about made-up political fundraising scandals.

NewsGuard says it’s already found 3,000 AI content farm sites – more than double what it detected last year using manual methods.

Here’s hoping that more research into AI slop will help shift ad dollars in the right direction this year.

But Wait! There’s More!

In the AI era, subscribers are the real prize. [Digiday]

Anthropic is in talks with a number of private equity firms about creating an AI joint venture. [The Information]

Amazon introduced ads into its line of smart displays – and hackers quickly found a way to liberate (aka jailbreak) them. [Aftermath]

As they take on the quiet, painful job of content moderation, the workers in Africa who train AI systems want recognition and rights this time around. [404 Media]